How to Know Your Target Market1822

It seems to me that a lot of people are talking about their target audience (buyer persona) but very few of them actually know who their target market actually is.

Just curious as to is people really know who their target market is ... and saying your target market is everyone that wants to drive a flash car, or everyone over thirty, etc... isn't a target market .... a real buyer persona allows you to talk to that one person in a hundred and really connect with them... so that they move along your sales funnel.

These are the questions you should seek answers to.
Online Activates of Your Buyer Personas

What do your buyer personas do online? Where do they go, what do they do and what social media platforms do they use regularly?

Worries and Problems

What are three or more problems or issues that your buyer persona dedicates time, budget and energy to solving? This is especially useful if you can tie it back to your product or service... i.e. they have this issue, this product helps solve that.

What does success look like?

What does success look like in the clients’ eyes, this could be revenue growth, or personal development such as a promotion?

Road Blocks or Blockages

What could prompt your buyer persona group to question whether you can help them achieve their success goals? This is where you begin to uncover the hidden objections such as office politics, prior experience with a company likes your, a lack of trust, etc.

Do You Know Their Purchasing Cycle?

What process does your buyer persona follow in exploring, evaluating and selecting a solution that can overcome their perceived road blocks and achieve their success goals?

Decision Making

What will your buyer persona group think about the products offered by your competitors? What aspects will they like, find useful, decide are better than yours, worse than your own. If you really push the boat out, you should aim to find this information out from those that purchase from a competitor and those that decide that no solution is right for them.

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Once you have answers to the above questions you can work out demographics ... which you more or less have now ... and move on from there ...

I agree one must take the time to clearly define a target audience, however I disagree that it needs to be so narrowly defined that one leaves out all tertiary parts of a market to concentration on brown-haired-mothers-with-precisely-two- children-who-lives-in-a-two-bedroom-house-in-a-moderate-neighborhood-and-holds-a-volunteer-position-while-mostly-staying-home-with-her-children-but-plans-on-re-entering-the-job-field-as-soon-as-they-are-both-in-school.

This may be one's IDEAL client, but I believe one needs to cast a wider net to even hope to come up with one's ideal client amongst one's many POSSIBLE clients.

Identifying a target market gets one thinking about how to reach them and will, of necessity, help them frame their marketing approach to reach as many IDEAL clients/customers as possible without attempting to shoehorn in every conceivable permutation of that market. The where and how completes the who of a target market in my experience.

@Aradiaz you don't leave them out... you are directing all of your marketing efforts to reach out and engage your target customer ... other people will still be reached however your ideal customer ... the ones you want to work with are were you should be focusing your efforts.

You cannot market successfully to everyone... and don't forget you can have multiple buyer personas depending on products, etc...

For example...

Lets assume I am sell cars... who is my target market? People that want to buy the cars I sell, that live within ten miles and want the personal service my company offers.

That could be right... but that person might be married... so the actual decision maker might also be his wife... so you need a profile for that person.

Oh and perhaps that person purchases vehicles for a business and reports to a boss, an accountant, etc...

By having buyer personas for all of these people, you know the questions and buying decisions they have... and can answer them within your marketing efforts leading to better conversions, etc.

I think you are confusing buying persons and selling approaches with identifying a target market.
A target market is the overall who, while the approach singles out the specific buying persona and concentrates ones selling language to match.
One's target market only identifies the tent that covers your area of concentration. Much like how one is a geologist, making his target rocks, specifically gemstones, and more specifically rubys.
A target market identifies who might be your customers,i.e.: people over 40 thinking of retirement, worried about income, health and planning wisely, specifically those who are ready to take action, more specifically, those who want to work for themselves.

@Aradiaz same dog different leg.... target market was the old term used prior to buyer personas being adopted... admittedly most people never went into detail with target market research instead sticking with demographic data which is more or less useless... but target market, target audience, buyer persona and best customer ... all basically refer to the same dog just different legs...

@Belew Do you write your content to appeal to everyone or do you write it to appeal to those that want to use your services... If you could write it to meet the needs of these people, so that they go WOW ... I want to work with this guy... aren't you creating content that really connects, engages and answers the needs of these people.

This is what buyer personas, target audiences, target customers... best customers... whatever you want to call it... allow you to achieve without wasting your efforts on everyone else.